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On March 25 2022 23:37 gobbledydook wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2022 22:30 Gorsameth wrote:On March 25 2022 22:20 Belisarius wrote:On March 25 2022 09:59 Sbrubbles wrote:
We have mandatory voting in Brazil but I'm ambivalent towards it. I feel it increases the importance of money in politics because it takes less marketing effort to convince someone to vote for a specific candidate if he isn't really interested in politics in the first place. At least it solves the problem of voting apathy being unequaly distributed throughout the population groups.
The key thing that compulsory voting does is remove turnout from play. There is no longer any incentive to prevent your opponents' voters from showing up, which removes a lot of the most underhanded nonsense that goes on. I used to dislike it on the basis that people showing up because they have to are probably not making informed choices, but these days I think the positives outweigh the negatives. You underestimate the Republicans. They would keep trying to prevent African Americans people from voting so they could then charge them with failing to vote and permanently remove their ability to vote in the future because they are now a convicted felon. Nah, in Australia all that happens if you don't vote is you get fined 20 dollars. We vote on Saturdays though, and you can vote early, or vote by mail if you can't make it on voting day. So the whole system is designed so that it's really hard to not be able to vote.
I mean, look at how our closest attempt to anything resembling Universal Healthcare got handled. Republicans mangled the law even worse than it was until it's all the worst parts of UHC with none of the upside, all so they could rally against it for the next decade. We would absolutely do the same thing if we tried a version of your system. You forget, America needs every other country to know that we're special, so we can't do something that another country is doing just because it works. Mandatory voting would 10000000% be weaponized against already disenfranchised minorites. No doubt about it.
The Australian system sounds like a fucking rose garden compared to what we deal with.
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On March 26 2022 02:38 NewSunshine wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2022 23:37 gobbledydook wrote:On March 25 2022 22:30 Gorsameth wrote:On March 25 2022 22:20 Belisarius wrote:On March 25 2022 09:59 Sbrubbles wrote:
We have mandatory voting in Brazil but I'm ambivalent towards it. I feel it increases the importance of money in politics because it takes less marketing effort to convince someone to vote for a specific candidate if he isn't really interested in politics in the first place. At least it solves the problem of voting apathy being unequaly distributed throughout the population groups.
The key thing that compulsory voting does is remove turnout from play. There is no longer any incentive to prevent your opponents' voters from showing up, which removes a lot of the most underhanded nonsense that goes on. I used to dislike it on the basis that people showing up because they have to are probably not making informed choices, but these days I think the positives outweigh the negatives. You underestimate the Republicans. They would keep trying to prevent African Americans people from voting so they could then charge them with failing to vote and permanently remove their ability to vote in the future because they are now a convicted felon. Nah, in Australia all that happens if you don't vote is you get fined 20 dollars. We vote on Saturdays though, and you can vote early, or vote by mail if you can't make it on voting day. So the whole system is designed so that it's really hard to not be able to vote. I mean, look at how our closest attempt to anything resembling Universal Healthcare got handled. Republicans mangled the law even worse than it was until it's all the worst parts of UHC with none of the upside, all so they could rally against it for the next decade. We would absolutely do the same thing if we tried a version of your system. You forget, America needs every other country to know that we're special, so we can't do something that another country is doing just because it works. Mandatory voting would 10000000% be weaponized against already disenfranchised minorites. No doubt about it. The Australian system sounds like a fucking rose garden compared to what we deal with.
To be fair, Republican ideas were bad, but the ACA passed with a Democrat super majority, so in reality the Democrats didnt need to do what the Republicans wanted because no Republicans voted for it anyways, lol. They still did what Republicans wanted though, for reasons I guess.
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On March 26 2022 03:14 Zambrah wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2022 02:38 NewSunshine wrote:On March 25 2022 23:37 gobbledydook wrote:On March 25 2022 22:30 Gorsameth wrote:On March 25 2022 22:20 Belisarius wrote:On March 25 2022 09:59 Sbrubbles wrote:
We have mandatory voting in Brazil but I'm ambivalent towards it. I feel it increases the importance of money in politics because it takes less marketing effort to convince someone to vote for a specific candidate if he isn't really interested in politics in the first place. At least it solves the problem of voting apathy being unequaly distributed throughout the population groups.
The key thing that compulsory voting does is remove turnout from play. There is no longer any incentive to prevent your opponents' voters from showing up, which removes a lot of the most underhanded nonsense that goes on. I used to dislike it on the basis that people showing up because they have to are probably not making informed choices, but these days I think the positives outweigh the negatives. You underestimate the Republicans. They would keep trying to prevent African Americans people from voting so they could then charge them with failing to vote and permanently remove their ability to vote in the future because they are now a convicted felon. Nah, in Australia all that happens if you don't vote is you get fined 20 dollars. We vote on Saturdays though, and you can vote early, or vote by mail if you can't make it on voting day. So the whole system is designed so that it's really hard to not be able to vote. I mean, look at how our closest attempt to anything resembling Universal Healthcare got handled. Republicans mangled the law even worse than it was until it's all the worst parts of UHC with none of the upside, all so they could rally against it for the next decade. We would absolutely do the same thing if we tried a version of your system. You forget, America needs every other country to know that we're special, so we can't do something that another country is doing just because it works. Mandatory voting would 10000000% be weaponized against already disenfranchised minorites. No doubt about it. The Australian system sounds like a fucking rose garden compared to what we deal with. To be fair, Republican ideas were bad, but the ACA passed with a Democrat super majority, so in reality the Democrats didnt need to do what the Republicans wanted because no Republicans voted for it anyways, lol. They still did what Republicans wanted though, for reasons I guess.
It really does make it hard to argue that Republicans are the obstacle that prevents things from being done. Well, they are, but Democrats aren't showing much enthusiasm for actually exercising their majority. Wouldn't want to help too many people, now, that would be socialist.
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On March 26 2022 04:47 JimmiC wrote:
The biggest problem is that almost half of americans vote for the republicans another large percentage want not quite QAnon crazy but like it how it is. People talk in this thread as if the evil Reps or bad dems are stopping the peoples will. But the people who actually get out and vote want this.
The question is how do you get them on board wity another way, and how to get those who want something different to actually get out and vote, primary especially.
I think a lot of that is a long-term effect of the 2-party system in the US. The population is not independent from the parties, the parties also create the population that votes for them.
In the US, there is a lot of disinformation media, and it seems that a lot of education is incredibly ideologically biased. Which is something that i think is directly based in parties trying to create long-term voters.
Basically, incentives are set up so that no one in politics actually has any interest in having a well-educated, well-informed, critical population. Which leads to the shit you got now.
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On March 26 2022 04:47 JimmiC wrote:
The biggest problem is that almost half of americans vote for the republicans another large percentage want not quite QAnon crazy but like it how it is. People talk in this thread as if the evil Reps or bad dems are stopping the peoples will. But the people who actually get out and vote want this.
The question is how do you get them on board wity another way, and how to get those who want something different to actually get out and vote, primary especially.
Congress wouldnt have such garbage approval ratings if this was true.
By this logic people who were employed in Gilded Age factories actually really liked their company towns and child maimings, after all, if they didn't they would just quit and get a job elsewhere.
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On March 26 2022 05:16 Zambrah wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2022 04:47 JimmiC wrote:
The biggest problem is that almost half of americans vote for the republicans another large percentage want not quite QAnon crazy but like it how it is. People talk in this thread as if the evil Reps or bad dems are stopping the peoples will. But the people who actually get out and vote want this.
The question is how do you get them on board wity another way, and how to get those who want something different to actually get out and vote, primary especially. Congress wouldnt have such garbage approval ratings if this was true. By this logic people who were employed in Gilded Age factories actually really liked their company towns and child maimings, after all, if they didn't they would just quit and get a job elsewhere. 2020 had a 96% re-election rate for Congress (and 93 overall) if I read https://ballotpedia.org/Election_results,_2020:_Incumbent_win_rates_by_state right.
So the problem isn't their congressmen, its everyone else that is the problem, apparently.
Tho ofcourse its also just tribalism to the max. No matter how bad 'your' guy is, the other guy is apparently not an consideration.
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Definitely a complicated confluence of factors, including a warped system thats cultivated a pretty terrible electoral hellscape.
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On March 25 2022 21:03 gobbledydook wrote:
Just wondering: how many people need to support your cause, in order for revolutionary politics to be justified?
From my perspective it is the US's imperialist racial capitalist hegemony that is categorically unjustifiable, regardless of how popular it is.
That's one of the first steps I understand people to need to take. Once one arrives at that conclusion, finding and advocating an alternative becomes a moral and practical necessity. The nature of hegemony means that alternative will be less established/supported. (Communist) Revolutionary politics is about joining with people to find/investigate such realizations/contradictions, imagining/refining something better, and applying experience/theory to bring it into existence and continue to refine and imagine (aka basically scientific socialism).
Put another way; the Stonewall uprising didn't get their justification from popular public support for (especially further marginalized groups') LGBT+ human rights in the 60's and neither does my understanding of revolutionary politics.
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On March 26 2022 05:27 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2022 05:16 Zambrah wrote:On March 26 2022 04:47 JimmiC wrote:
The biggest problem is that almost half of americans vote for the republicans another large percentage want not quite QAnon crazy but like it how it is. People talk in this thread as if the evil Reps or bad dems are stopping the peoples will. But the people who actually get out and vote want this.
The question is how do you get them on board wity another way, and how to get those who want something different to actually get out and vote, primary especially. Congress wouldnt have such garbage approval ratings if this was true. By this logic people who were employed in Gilded Age factories actually really liked their company towns and child maimings, after all, if they didn't they would just quit and get a job elsewhere. 2020 had a 96% re-election rate for Congress (and 93 overall) if I read https://ballotpedia.org/Election_results,_2020:_Incumbent_win_rates_by_state right. So the problem isn't their congressmen, its everyone else that is the problem, apparently. Tho ofcourse its also just tribalism to the max. No matter how bad 'your' guy is, the other guy is apparently not an consideration.
This is the unfortunate truth a lot of folks can't accept. Every time there is a primary, these people keep winning. People look at their choices, then choose these people. Until you convince people to vote differently during primaries, guess that's all there is to it. Nothing can change before you change people's minds. We aren't there yet. A lot of cultural work still needs to be done.
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What's your guy's political calculus on liberal Senators? I think most the new progressive senators running in 2020 got their asses kicked, which feeds into the Democrat's hesitancy to field progressive candidates.
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On March 26 2022 14:58 lestye wrote:
What's your guy's political calculus on liberal Senators? I think most the new progressive senators running in 2020 got their asses kicked, which feeds into the Democrat's hesitancy to field progressive candidates.
Liberal senators are incredibly challenging anywhere other than states with mega cities. Rural culture is just too archaic. Lots of the country is rural.
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On March 26 2022 15:15 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2022 14:58 lestye wrote:
What's your guy's political calculus on liberal Senators? I think most the new progressive senators running in 2020 got their asses kicked, which feeds into the Democrat's hesitancy to field progressive candidates. Liberal senators are incredibly challenging anywhere other than states with mega cities. Rural culture is just too archaic. Lots of the country is rural.
I don't think it's fair to say rural culture is "archaic".
It is different, certainly.
But they may reasonably consider the cosmopolitan culture as "radical" given their worldview. You're not going to be changing their minds if you go in with the pretext that they are backwards and need to educated for their own good.
Imagine aliens with vastly more developed culture and technology came and determined to educate the misguided humans on how to live.
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On March 26 2022 13:34 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2022 05:27 Gorsameth wrote:On March 26 2022 05:16 Zambrah wrote:On March 26 2022 04:47 JimmiC wrote:
The biggest problem is that almost half of americans vote for the republicans another large percentage want not quite QAnon crazy but like it how it is. People talk in this thread as if the evil Reps or bad dems are stopping the peoples will. But the people who actually get out and vote want this.
The question is how do you get them on board wity another way, and how to get those who want something different to actually get out and vote, primary especially. Congress wouldnt have such garbage approval ratings if this was true. By this logic people who were employed in Gilded Age factories actually really liked their company towns and child maimings, after all, if they didn't they would just quit and get a job elsewhere. 2020 had a 96% re-election rate for Congress (and 93 overall) if I read https://ballotpedia.org/Election_results,_2020:_Incumbent_win_rates_by_state right. So the problem isn't their congressmen, its everyone else that is the problem, apparently. Tho ofcourse its also just tribalism to the max. No matter how bad 'your' guy is, the other guy is apparently not an consideration. This is the unfortunate truth a lot of folks can't accept. Every time there is a primary, these people keep winning. People look at their choices, then choose these people. Until you convince people to vote differently during primaries, guess that's all there is to it. Nothing can change before you change people's minds. We aren't there yet. A lot of cultural work still needs to be done.
If you look at polls, voters think their own representative and senator are good, and everyone else is awful and is why Congress is awful in general.
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On March 26 2022 14:58 lestye wrote:
What's your guy's political calculus on liberal Senators? I think most the new progressive senators running in 2020 got their asses kicked, which feeds into the Democrat's hesitancy to field progressive candidates. The simple truth is that America is incredibly conservative, even on the left.
Progressives in America look at the rest of the Western world and think they are a majority, if not for the 'system' without realizing that in America they are a minority.
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On March 26 2022 10:47 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2022 21:03 gobbledydook wrote:
Just wondering: how many people need to support your cause, in order for revolutionary politics to be justified? From my perspective it is the US's imperialist racial capitalist hegemony that is categorically unjustifiable, regardless of how popular it is. That's one of the first steps I understand people to need to take. Once one arrives at that conclusion, finding and advocating an alternative becomes a moral and practical necessity. The nature of hegemony means that alternative will be less established/supported. (Communist) Revolutionary politics is about joining with people to find/investigate such realizations/contradictions, imagining/refining something better, and applying experience/theory to bring it into existence and continue to refine and imagine (aka basically scientific socialism). Put another way; the Stonewall uprising didn't get their justification from popular public support for (especially further marginalized groups') LGBT+ human rights in the 60's and neither does my understanding of revolutionary politics.
How do you make sure that the majority who currently oppose your revolution come to accept it?
I can see that either you do what Stalin did, which is crush them with your state power, or you have to go back to electoral politics to obtain legitimacy.
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On March 26 2022 18:55 gobbledydook wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2022 10:47 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 25 2022 21:03 gobbledydook wrote:
Just wondering: how many people need to support your cause, in order for revolutionary politics to be justified? From my perspective it is the US's imperialist racial capitalist hegemony that is categorically unjustifiable, regardless of how popular it is. That's one of the first steps I understand people to need to take. Once one arrives at that conclusion, finding and advocating an alternative becomes a moral and practical necessity. The nature of hegemony means that alternative will be less established/supported. (Communist) Revolutionary politics is about joining with people to find/investigate such realizations/contradictions, imagining/refining something better, and applying experience/theory to bring it into existence and continue to refine and imagine (aka basically scientific socialism). Put another way; the Stonewall uprising didn't get their justification from popular public support for (especially further marginalized groups') LGBT+ human rights in the 60's and neither does my understanding of revolutionary politics. How do you make sure that the majority who currently oppose your revolution come to accept it? I can see that either you do what Stalin did, which is crush them with your state power, or you have to go back to electoral politics to obtain legitimacy.
I assume the plan is to educate people about the admittedly miserable state, capitalism has put the world into. However, as if it’s not difficult enough already, to have the majority understand the ways in which they are being fucked, you would, moreover, have to convince them of risking their convenient lives for the revolution. A revolution that could lead to a variety of worse outcomes, and most likely, to no change anything at all.
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Educating people in a position of comfort is not going to bring them to move their position.
Benevolent dictatorship?
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EPT
